Sadly, we departed Gili Meno. We could have stayed longer but so far we have said that about everywhere we have been, here in Indonesia. We had contracted with this guy we met on the beach to get us to our next stop. He was nice enough but even he didn’t seem to know what was going on. We waited on the beach as everyone else got on the the barge to take people from the beach to the waiting fast boat having been told our fast boat was coming later. Well yes and no. At the last minute we were told to get onto the barge and off we went. The barge needs to tie up to the fast boat. One would think that since they do this 10-20 times a day that the crews would know what to do. Well NO. The ocean wasn’t that rough but these guys had a terrible time tying up. Banging into each other. Nearly knocking passenger (us!) off the barge. Well they finally tied up together. One group got off for the fast boat to Gili T. We waited on the barge until a second fast boat arrived. With much difficulty we got on our fast boat to Lombok. Our fast boat was packed. We were the last ones on and there really wasn’t any decent seating left. Missy went inside the cabin as best she could. I sat with the bags in the back, next to the engines. The whole way to our next stop, Gili Air the engines spewed black smoke but now I’m stuck under luggage and crammed in by other people hoping it is a short ride. It was a short ride. The last piece to Lombok was comfortable enough at least by now both of us are in the cabin.

A car was waiting for us to take us to the Bukit Indah Boutique Accommodation, a two hour drive. The road trip was great as we took in the sounds of the city and enjoyed the beautiful countryside. We stopped at a weaving factory (mostly set up for tourists) and had some yummy rambutan sold at the roadside.

Our very lovely 4 room hotel was a perfect ending to a relatively long sea and land journey. The co-owner, Carol gave us the grand tour. Large room, large outside sitting area where we had breakfast each morning, the best shower on our trip, restaurant, with the best food we had had so far, next door. Life is good!!!!

The walk to the beach is about a half mile, it’s fine but of course it’s HOT and humid, with the only real transportation option being our feet. The beach – Selong Blanak – is gorgeous. Maybe a mile long. 50+ sun beds, small very casual Indonesian style beach restaurants, a half dozen surfing schools. We walked the beach and took many sunset photos.

As the sunset, hundreds of small boats in the bay turned on their lights. As we were to learn later they are fishing for baby lobster (about 1” or less). They are captured live to be shipped to the Philippines were they are raised to full size. Over fishing has decimated this potentially sustainable fishery. The potential money is huge. In the past a fisherman could make 1-2 years of salary in one night.  Now they struggle to survive but they still fish.

On the 25^th we spent the whole day at the beach. Grabbed a couple of sun beds and relaxed. For a beginning surfer this is the spot. Individual and group lessons are available. We saw dozens of students learning and having fun. The local Romeo’s were loving meeting young western women. After sunset campfires and singing continued. As the sunset approached and most people had left the beach, three young beach boys (20 to 23) decided to be our friends. We laughed, they sang, we talked.  They even brought us durian fruit flavored ice cream cones. You had a sense that there was some angle to their friendliness but a request for money never came. Just good humor and a wish to see us the next day.

We arranged for a driver to take us to the famous Kuta beach in southern Lombok, where we planned to stay a few days making plans and enjoying the beach.

Kuta beach is under renovation so it wasn’t very nice. In the future it will be a destination beach but now it leaves a lot to be desired. I did manage to get a Sarong from a young lady along the beach.

Our hotel was another four individual villa place called Avia Villa. Again, very nice but this one had a problem with AC. Each day was some challenge. It has a very nice pool. All of the accommodations so far are falling into a pattern. Smallish, very friendly staff, decent to good breakfast, a feeling of safeness. Staff readily willing to help with any issue. Always a connection to a driver who wants to be our guide for a very reasonable rate.

We hired a driver, Adi, to show us the beaches and some local spots. First stop, Secret/Lancing Beach. Well not really a secret, just a beautiful very undeveloped beach. It’s really beautiful. Besides the guy that rents the beach chairs no one was there. He has a very small stand, a few chairs, small umbrellas. We looked, we saw, we took pictures, we left. Next was Tampah beach. It’s really at the other end of secret beach. It’s more “developed”. It has two places (bamboo shacks) to buy limited food, water, and young coconut.  We fell in love with the family that ran one of the places. We walked the beach, took our photos, went back and sat in the shade drinking Lombok coffee. She takes the beans, roasts them, grinds, them, adds the boiling water and let’s sit a moment, adds some sugar and serves. Delicious! Next was Marwan beach, the most developed so far. There are real structures and shops, paved parking, vendors, and dozens of kids selling string bracelets. The beach itself is not so pretty. Missy got into a conversation with one 10-year-old girl about her bracelets. All of a sudden 8-10 more were there. Some mothers with babies joined with everyone wanting Missy to buy one or more bracelets or some other trinket. Missy bought one from the first girl. The others continued to try and sell their wares so made a beeline to the car and left.

After the beach we headed to the oldest Mosque (Masjid Kumi) on Lombok island, where they reportedly have 1000 mosques. The mosque is very interesting. It’s round with stone and wood sides with a thatched roof. We could not go in but our driver did and took a few nice pictures from the inside.

Next we went to the Sasak village in Sade Lombok. It’s a maintained example of how the Sasak people lived. It seems to be a fully functioning village with inhabitants. We were met by a guide. I guess a guide was required but that part was iffy. He took us around and showed us everything. It was a bit rushed but that was fine with me. At the end I was asked if I liked everything, did he do a good job. The message was clear now was the time to pay up, how much? Up to you! This, “up to you” is a pretty typical response.  100,000 Rupiah is about $7.25 USD. The typical starting wage for a hotel worker is 1,500,000 PER MONTH, or $100 PER MONTH. So 100,000 R is a lot for them but little for us. When they say it’s up to you they understand this. I paid 100,000 R, he seemed upset, I gave him another 50,000 R “for the village” for him to give them. This is a place for tour busses to stop and it’s pretty famous here. They do fine.

We really liked Tampah beach. So, we decided to spend our last day in Kuta at this beach. We arrived early, had a fresh cup of local Lombok coffee from our new friend, found a spot under the makeshift bamboo shade and marveled at the beauty of the view, the clarity of the water, the small pearl like sand that was hard to walk on (felt like walking in deep snow) but fell right off you. Once or twice throughout the day a couple of other tourists came for a visit but the beach was pretty much ours and an occasional small group of local boys who came for swimming or fishing.

We tried to buy as much as we could from our new friends’ shop as we were her only customers all day. But really a couple cups of coffee, a couple sodas, a fresh young coconut was about it. She did offer us a bag of her coffee. How much? Yep you guessed it, “it’s up to you”. Now the dilemma is even greater, we liked them, we saw how poor they are. We knew the husband, the teenage daughter, the local teenage boy who was their friend or relative. We don’t want to pay too much as that’s not a healthy relationship. We himed, we hawed, we said what would it cost in the store, we guessed a price. We paid her 100,000R she seemed very happy. Did we over pay, yes, by local standards but it seemed fair to us?

Tipping- Tipping here is a challenge. A service fee of 10% is often added to a bill. For most services a tip is not accepted or even understood. We read and it made sense to tip hotel staff that we interacted with when we left. For the most part it’s been 50,000 R per day for housekeeping and front desk staff.  Not always, maybe more maybe less depending on the place. We frequently leave a 20,000 R ($1) for the free breakfast and 10,000 R for a taxi. The locals certainly don’t and I haven’t seen other foreigners leave anything. Oh well the debate continues.

We got a taxi to Mataram, the capital of Lombok, where we wanted to spend a couple of days doing business. Mataram is a regional center but not a tourist area. We wanted to regroup and make some future plans. But the main reason to go there was to send a load of stuff home. Even though we got all of our belongings into a carryon luggage and small backpack we found we had too much stuff. Stuff that after a month we didn’t use and didn’t think we ever would use. As it turned out we had 18 lbs. of stuff to send back. It was one of those if you knew the language there must be a better way. All we really wanted was to send regular post, not by Air. In China I sent by regular post, yes it took 3-4 months but I didn’t care as it all arrived. Here we could see that regular surface mail by boat was possible and cheap but we couldn’t make our wishes would be known. Then the question was, is it worth the $150 to send by Air. In the end we decided yes and we are now 18 lbs. lighter.

While in Mataram we set out walking to find the post office. Should be easy, just down the street about 1.2k. Well I got us lost. We eventually saw the post office sign, hurray!!!. Only to find it wasn’t really there. So we stopped at this office to ask about the post office and were told it wasn’t there. Darn, now what. These kind people showed me how to use Grab, the Uber like App for SE Asia. We called a Grab car to take us to the main post office. While waiting they could see we were stressed by heat/humidity and brought us inside and gave us water. A sign on the door said only English spoken here???? Odd so I asked. As it turns out they are a hotel worker training site. They have something like 250 students. While we were waiting anyway they offered us a tour of the place. Everything in English. Labs to learn how to clean and make up a hotel room. A Bar. A dining room. O I asked what is the tuition, I think they said 28,000,000 R. WHAT I thought, that’s a lot. So I asked well how much does a graduate make. They said 1,500,000 per month. Really I thought the tuition is pretty high. But maybe, likely, there is something we are missing.  BTW- I was told in Ubud and then again in Sanur the hotel staff make 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 R per month on Bali. That’s with no day off except certain holidays.

We did manage to visit some of the attractions, in and close to Mataram, two of the famous and ancient Hindu temples, the two main shopping malls and the local market.  Our trip to see the sunset at Janeng An, was well worth it.

Well it was time to leave Lombok and we needed to arrange our flight.  The cheap way is Lion Air but it has a very poor rating. So eventually we settled on the world class Garuda airlines. It was as expected fine. Before we left the Lombok airport I heard “we apologize for the delay but Lion Air flight ### scheduled to leave for Bali at 11:00am has been delayed until 3:00pm”. According to the reviews when they don’t have enough passengers they combine flights. Glad we did the right thing and had our secure flight on Garuda.

Following are the links to our MANY Lombok photos:

Gili Meno to Lombok: https://photos.app.goo.gl/CMM0eTGBdOo9cYqo2

Lombok port to Selang Blanak: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qpiIgKodrkCq7l6i1

Selong Blanak: https://photos.app.goo.gl/0ytu9mZAxGdjnUi73

Lancing/Secret beach: https://photos.app.goo.gl/pCXgvuRnw9dhwWlS2

Mawan beach:https://photos.app.goo.gl/7OcOBx8UFYFuKxEr1

Masjid Kumi: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WTS1tGN203z8IxD42

Sasak village: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZZaBWXWgsauuPcb82

Janeng An: https://photos.app.goo.gl/CNUhWZR813F2FXW62

Tampah beach: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Lmrk8yEsjitPSChE2

Mataram: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ABG6Ec98Ou3gKPjM2